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Webbunny tumblelog
story from Jul 18, 2009, titled Atheism requires as much faith as religion?.
In it, Webbunny tumblelog reports that:

Atheism requires as much faith as religion? bearvspuma : The only problem with this rationalization is that ita s assuming all athiests are so because theya re intelligent in the ways of science and reasoning and all people that believe in a form of god are unintelligent.

<quoted text>No, they are not even close to being the same. The term 'created' pee-supposes an intelligence working. To be caused does not make that assumption.<quoted text>That you are slipping relevant assumptions into your argument without justifying the new assumptions.<quoted text>Whao there! Exactly which 'transcendental laws' do you think govern intelligence that are any different than the laws of physics?<quoted text>All three sentences here are unjustified claims. Why do absolutes need an absolute cause?(and what does it mean to be an absolute cause?) And why does an absolute cause have all the properties associated with deities?You are making many assertions without any justification. You haven't even defined what it means to be 'caused' yet, let alone what it means to be 'absolute'. For that matter, you haven't defined the term 'God' either.

The very principle of cause and effect demands absolutes have a cause...

<quoted text>Except that I am interested in truth and that lying makes it much more difficult to determine truth. Your justification of God as a standard of morality is also circular, since give no reason to think there is such a thing and you justify its existence via the existence of God.Come on, I know you are better than that. You can think a bit more about your assumptions and where they might be wrong. it's a healthy exercise.

The existence of absolute moral standards, as evidenced by everyone appealing to them, even if they deny them when it suits, requires an explanation.

That God has revealed them to us, personally, in time, is the evidence required...

Of course you will deny both these facts, but that does not stop them being true...

The Big Bang theory is a region of what we call space, or a small particle, got very hot and agitated and went flying to pieces. It was assumedly a monolithic substance or collection of energy. After going to pieces and expanding the energy, which they refer to as heat, got dissipated and condensed into droplets, which became matter.

No, this is not *at all* what the Big Bang theory says. Every sentence in your 'explanation' is factually incorrect.

mtimber wrote:<quoted text>All empirical observations are founded on the presupposition of the reliability of the laws of cause and effect.This is false.I am not sure where you are going with this one.Is this another attempt to deny the obvious?I am attempting to show that things you think are obvious are, in fact, false.

polymath257 wrote:

<quoted text>This is false.<quoted text>I am attempting to show that things you think are obvious are, in fact, false.

<quoted text>"If the entire universe is an isolated system, then, according to the second law of thermodynamics, the energy in the universe available for useful work has always been decreasing. However, as one goes back in time, the energy available for work would eventually exceed the total energy in the universe, which, according to the first law of thermodynamics, remains constant. This is an impossible condition, implying the universe had a beginning.a

A rather bad misunderstanding of both the first and second laws as applied to curved spacetime.

A further consequence of the second law is that soon after the universe began, it was more organized and complex than it is todayânot in a highly disorganized and random state as assumed by evolutionists and proponents of the big bang theory."

Which proponent of the Big bang theory denies that the early universe was a low entropy state?

<quoted text>yes, I specifically deny this.Here is one version of the law of causality: anything that is caused is caused by something physical. That is supported by *all* the evidence. Your 'first cause' argument fails with this version of the law.

So your argument is that all there is is infinite egress?

You deny that cause and effect point to a first cause?

You deny basic scientific and logical observations, based on what reasoning?

<quoted text>This guy is not too terribly brilliant, but he is playing you guys as if he was.All that he has done is, taken you {Non-Believers} back to a point that you have to admit that science does not have the answer and then claim god did it.So far, science cannot tell us how the universe or life was created. mtimber uses that, plus a bit of word twisting, denial, and ignorance and he has you hooked!

<quoted text>Moral God?Read the BibleWhen a person reads declarations like this, they must always keep in mind that to a zealous Christian, all other belief systems are false by definition.Nothing moral exists outside of the theological cocoon Christians reside in.So of course, when these zealots speak of a "belief in and love for God", it must be the Bible God and no other. In other words, unless you believe in and love the Bible God, you can never be "totally" moral.There are many examples of God's "morals" which are anything but moral according to modern "civilized" societies.Perhaps the most obvious example of God's questionable morals can be found regarding the issue of slavery.The Bible God endorsed slavery. That's a fact according to the Bible. Christians however, don't like this to be pointed out about their God so they'll attempt to dilute this ugly fact by claiming that God simply "tolerated" slavery but never endorsed it.A few quotes from the Bible dissolve this cozy notion and rather lame attempt to wash God's hands of this ugly doctrine.The Bible God gave instructions on how his chosen people should wage war against their various neighbors:Deut 20:10-11When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries(forced laborers) unto thee, and they shall serve thee.Notice that if the people of the attacked city accept the "offer of peace" they will become slaves of God's chosen people. Forced labor is slavery.Deut 20:12-16And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:Notice that God instructs his people to completely annihilate nearby nations, killing anything that "breathes", while nations further outside an immediate zone of holiness will have their men killed, their women, children, livestock and everything else taken as plunder by God's chosen people.Does any of this actually sound "moral" ? This is the same Bible God which Christians say that society must believe in and love in order to have a totally moral society.Are slavery and mass genocide "moral" just because this deity commanded it?Read the Bible... It is obvious you enjoy scant knowledge of its contents.

You did not argue a reason for your own morality.

You have just argued you do not like biblical morality, which was irrelevant to the point.

So I will ask you the same question again:

What is your absolute standard of morality upon which you base this claim?I point to the eternal pre-existing all knowing absolutely moral God.What do you point to, as an atheist, to support your claim?

<quoted text>I think you are equivocating a lack of an account for a cause, with a lack of a cause...

No, I am very well aware of the distinction between the two ideas. I am claiming a *lack* of cause as shown by explicit experiments (like Arrow's demonstration) to test general causality.

Hence your argument then permits you to deny causality.Which of course means denying the process of logic itself.

No, it most certainly does not. Logical derivation has nothing to do with causality. Logic is an abstract collection of methods of deriving truths from previous truths. Causality has to do with how the laws of physics allow one to deduce a later state from an initial state.

Meaning you have argued that a lack of logic is logical.Which is illogical.

I have demonstrated it.The Bible clearly shows that you are lying on this matter.And as the Bible has shown it can be trusted, then I see no reason to take your word over the truths it clearly reveals.You do know of God, but you suppress that truth so that you can continue in sin.You say you don't lie, as if there is an absolute moral value you wish to ascribe to yourself.Why would you, as an atheist be concerned about that?You see, you claim to live by atheistic principles of morality, but then you appeal to Christian principles of morality as the defining standard of your character.Which reveals, that yes, you do know God, but you deny Him as it suits your purpose to...

EmpAtheist wrote:

<quoted text>Well...... it was fun while it lasted. This response is just as ignorant as the rest of the name callers. Just using enough class to not use words like idiot and retard.It would be very illogical to know god exists but pretend you dont so you can sin!I hope you were just having a moment and you haven't lost control.

The point is not whether you agree with my argument, but rather whether you understand why I have made it.

<quoted text>I have known some intelligent theists. There have even been some on these forums (Fossil Bob comes to mind). But the vast majority of theists in here show their ignorance and stupidity by criticizing science they clearly do not understand and making arguments that are easily refutable. They also show themselves a danger by wanting to teach their malarkey in the schools and have government institutions fund their churches.

[QUOTE]You have faith in your conviction there are no deities. Or you have a different pathology relating to some need to be contrary."

Or I am interested in finding the truth and showing people that they don't have to be subject to superstition.

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